Chaos is as chaos does. At the ABC:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has moved to assure Australians any coronavirus vaccine will not be compulsory, despite earlier saying he expected that would be the case.
Overnight the Federal Government announced it had signed a letter of intent with UK-based drug company AstraZeneca, in a step towards securing supply of a leading vaccine candidate that could be supplied free to Australians.
If a successful candidate is discovered, the Government wants to see 95 per cent of Australians vaccinated.
Talking up hopes of a successful vaccine on Wednesday morning, Mr Morrison told Melbourne radio station 3AW he would “expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make it”, noting the devastation COVID-19 has wreaked on the world.
“There are always exemptions for any vaccine on medical grounds, but that should be the only basis,” he said.
But just hours later, Mr Morrison told listeners on Sydney radio station 2GB that the Government would not make vaccination mandatory for anybody.
“It’s not going to be compulsory to have the vaccine,” he said.
While the Government does not mandate vaccination for other diseases, parents can lose access to Government payments like the Family Tax Benefit A and the Child Care Subsidy if their children do not meet immunisation requirements.
Mr Morrison said the Government would take measures to “encourage” people to be vaccinated.
“Nobody’s going to force anybody to do anything as a compulsory measure, but we will certainly be encouraging people to take this up,” he said.
“There will be a lot of encouragement and measures to get [a] high rate of acceptance.
“What we want to achieve is as much vaccination as we possibly can, should the vaccine actually prove successful.”
It is understood the Government hopes to have a more formal agreement with AstraZeneca in place within coming days, once a local manufacturer is locked down.
Australian biotech giant CSL is the frontrunner for local production of the vaccine.
AstraZeneca Australia’s Liz Chatwin acknowledged Australian scientists had never made the particular type of vaccine before.
“This is an adenovirus vector vaccine, so it hasn’t ever been produced in Australia,” she said.
“This is a massive scale-up activity. We haven’t done it before.”
Sources say securing a contract with AstraZeneca is one thing, but manufacturing it is another.
The time and effort required for a company like CSL to “scale up” and produce a new type of vaccine for 25 million people is “enormous”, according to industry insiders, and will likely be the cause of any delays.
Labor criticised the agreement with AstraZeneca as too small a step and lacking in detail.
“These comments from Scott Morrison are further proof that the Government is making it up as they go along when it comes to the vaccine,” health spokesman Chris Bowen said.
“Of course we need a strategy to maximise the uptake of the vaccine amongst Australians — but it doesn’t appear that the Government has done any thinking on how they are going to roll out the vaccine, let alone how they are going to secure Australia supply of the vaccine.”
What choice did the panicked Morrison have but the backflip? He went off half-cocked with marketing slogans as usual. There is no vaccine, and the ones in development might kill you, also at the ABC:
It has long been held aloft as a way out of the coronavirus abyss.
A COVID-19 vaccine — the thing that will bring back some semblance of normality to Australian lives.
And yesterday — according to the Federal Government, at least — it got that little bit closer.
The announcement that the Australian Government was at the “front of the queue” with UK-based drug company AstraZeneca to secure Oxford University’s potential COVID-19 vaccine sent a wave of collective relief across the nation.
And according to those in the know, that’s exactly what it was supposed to do.
“The decision makes sense,” Tony Cunningham, a vaccine expert from Sydney’s Westmead Institute, told the ABC.
“But there is a long way to go.”
Writing on the wall
Over the past few months, one by one, Australia’s international allies and political foes have been falling behind their candidates, securing vaccine supply.
In the US, the Trump administration picked its potential winner back in May.
This month, Russia claimed it had already won, while China is spreading its wings far and wide, with three of six vaccine candidates in phase 3 trials.
The UK, predictably, backed in a candidate from one of its oldest and grandest institutions, Oxford University, whilst at the same time committing billions to deals with a French company and global pharma giant Pfizer.
Political pressure was building in Australia, with some industry insiders and vaccine experts questioning the Federal Government’s lack of action on the issue.
Last month, it gave its first real indication it was leaning towards the Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate, with Mr Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt revealing they were in talks with the UK Government.
Yesterday’s deal with AstraZeneca confirmed that.
But, like any major deal, the devil is in the details.
And in this case, the detail has gaping holes and a multitude of unknowns.
What’s in the detail?
The deal itself is only a “letter of intent” with an as-yet-unconfirmed “final formal agreement” to include vaccine distribution, timing and price — a price which is estimated to be in the billions if it comes off.
Unlike other countries, which have locked in agreements, insiders say the “letter of intent” is flimsy and summed up by the “deal” — also announced this week — with US medical technology company Becton Dickinson for 100 million needles and syringes for a vaccine that doesn’t yet exist.
Further, CSL, Australia’s biosecurity partner and the only company in the country with the capability to mass produce vaccines, currently does not have the technical capabilities to produce it.
Department of Health secretary Professor Brendan Murphy has indicated that CSL gave him advice that, with prior warning, it could move quickly to produce the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine if required.
The message was backed up by the Prime Minister.
CSL confirmed on Wednesday that it was “in discussions” with Oxford-AstraZeneca on “whether it is possible to provide local manufacturing support” at its Melbourne facility.
“We are assessing the viability of options ranging from the fill and finish of bulk product imported to Australia through to manufacture of the vaccine candidate under licence,” it said in a statement.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is an “adenovirus” vaccine, a type which has never been produced in Australia before.
However, according to experts, it can be made in “mammalian cells” — the kind CSL produces for its influenza vaccine.
The ABC understands that with a substantial cash injection, CSL could realign its technology to produce the adenovirus version, and the Federal Government is pushing for the company to lock in a formal agreement with AstraZeneca.
However, mRNA vaccines, such as the Trump administration’s Moderna candidate, are more complicated to make and would require a significant modification of CSL’s technology.
Insiders suggest that would have been a factor in why the Federal Government has leant towards Oxford-AstraZeneca, with CSL effectively ruling out a move to locally produce an mRNA vaccine.
Publicly, CSL says its priority remains the University of Queensland’s vaccine candidate, which is in the middle of human trials.
So why was Oxford-AstraZeneca picked?
According to Professor Cunningham, the vaccine itself, which is in stage 3 trials, has shown positive early signs.
Labelled “AZD1222” in scientific terms, the Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate is a “chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector”.
According to Oxford University, it is a “very well-studied vaccine type” that makes it safer to give to children, the elderly and anyone with a pre-existing condition such as diabetes.
“When the vaccine enters cells inside the body, it uses this genetic code to produce the surface spike protein of the coronavirus,” it said.
“This induces an immune response, priming the immune system to attack the coronavirus if it later infects the body.”
Oxford’s researchers believe they can deliver the first vaccines by the end of 2020.
But Professor Cunningham said any vaccine required ongoing study during phase 3 trials of 30,000 people or more.
He said the global community needed to be prepared for a “reasonably low bar” for any vaccine because of the unprecedented pressure to speed up the development process.
“And we might have a vaccine where, after a year, you would need to have a follow-up.”
So what’s next?
On Wednesday, the Prime Minister revealed a vaccine advisory group led by Department of Health secretary Brendan Murphy.
The group, described as a collection of science and research mega-minds, also includes acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly, chief scientist Alan Finkel and CSIRO chief Larry Marshall.
It met for the first time this week and will advise on implementing Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine and treatment strategy.
“[The group] will be identifying the others of the 160 [vaccines] that are out there and the positions we’ll take on others as well,” the Prime Minister said.
“We’re certainly not putting all our eggs in one basket here.
“It’s part of a more diversified approach.”
This is backed up by independent advice delivered to the Federal Government by the Australian Academy of Sciences, which is headed by Professor Cunningham.
Its latest advice suggests it is still too early to pick a winner.
Professor Cunningham said it was “smart” not to put “all our eggs in one basket”.
“We won’t know definitely [the results] until next year,” he said.
“There’s obviously quite a lot of urgency driving people to move quickly on this.
“But, as I said, there is a long way to go.”
I predict that no matter what the end result is for COVID vaccines, with a panicked leadership like this, the anti-vaxxer movement is about to enter a serious bull market.
